.
Yesterday in class we spoke about Marcel Duchamp and Dada. The L.H.O.O.Q. is a work that Duchamp referred to as a "readymade", where he took a Mona Lisa postcard reproduction and drew a moustache and beard in pencil and appended the title.
.
The meaning is interpreted as being an attack on the iconic Mona Lisa and traditional art, thus promoting Dadist ideals. Perhaps Duchamp decided to use his readymades to not only critique established art conventions, but also to force the audience to put aside what they had thought before and look at something with a different perspective. By making the gender of the Mona Lisa ambiguous, Duchamp presents his audience with a new perspective of a classical work of art.
.
Overall, Duchamp's Mona Lisa can be classified as an individual for a big group (the audience and media), but the Dadist movement in general can be viewed as a small group for a big group, where a rejection of pevailing standards in art through anti-art cultural works by a small group was intended to impact society at large.
Duchamp Mona Lisa 1919
